CATALYST MAGAZINE: Fall 2025
INSIGHT ALONG THE TRAIL
Over the course of the last semester, as a team, we have been asked a lot of questions pertaining to Catalyst as a course and the ins and outs of life as a student in the program. I have grouped them into the following three sections:
CHELSEA ZUNG
Catalyst Student
STATEMENT 1: "A student has to really care about climate to find Catalyst relevant to their own life and interesting."
Response: Catalyst offers students a unique toolset that other Menlo curricula do not get with climate change as the case study. As I have explored the classes this semester, the interdisciplinary nature of climate change makes it an interesting topic to study. For myself, the climate-centered aspect of Catalyst was an extremely appealing factor in my application. But many of my classmates chose Catalyst because of the skills the course teaches. Through a historical lens, we get to examine climate change as a collective action problem and look at past policies that lend a roadmap for future solutions.
Throughout this semester in English, we learn about how the idea of nature, the heart of our problem, has evolved over time; and effective communication methods to convince an audience that an issue is worth their time and worth finding a solution, and if there is a solution, that the means to achieve it are worthwhile. Our engineering class has explored how to physically solve problems through radical pre-design thinking that gets students thinking deeply about their problems and empathizing with the people or things affected by it to create effective solutions. We learned that in order to love what you do, you can’t be in love with your solution because, as you iterate, it changes, and instead to be in love with the problem you are trying to solve. In biology, students learn nature-based solutions to climate change and learn the skills to produce and digest a scientific research paper.
The aspect of Catalyst that is the most applicable to any problem is the soft skills learned in leadership class; we have been tuned to a systems-thinking lens. After almost a quarter and a half of Catalyst, I am seeing systems in literally every aspect of my day-to-day life - from sports practice to social media and politics - and realizing that no problem exists in a vacuum. Overall, the leadership and systems-mapping/thinking skills that Catalyst hands its students apply to any large-scale problem, examples being societal adaptation to AI, racial justice, gender inequity, and many more. While Catalyst may not be for everyone, it is for people who are naturally curious and enjoy playing with/contemplating problems and want to study the aspects that create an interconnected world
STATEMENT 2: "Young people can’t create real change, so why think about it now in high school instead of later?"
Response: Catalyst asks students to think about what the future looks like, what it needs that it is currently lacking, and what tools can learn now to help us then. Obviously, we aren’t creating climate solutions that could be implemented on a large scale during the timeline of the class. Instead, we are being asked what skills we want to learn to be able to solve those same problems in the future.
Prior to Catalyst, I had the same mindset of my inability to create effective change as a young person, but our experiences speaking with guests and field learnings have changed this. When I felt like this, it was always in relation to climate, and it would lead me to feeling like I shouldn’t even try to do anything because the impact would never be significant enough, especially at my age. Catalyst gave me the space to hear from experts across various fields, then to think and reflect on what I can gain from their perspective. Learning from real change makers’ experience has taught me some of the assets and skills that allow high-functioning teams to be successful.
For example, in our leadership projects, each student has been tasked with diving deep into a problem and intertwining themselves with it through studying the way that the system functions and speaking with stakeholders. We are asked to manage our outreach to the stakeholders on our own, which was scary at first, but we all quickly got the hang of it. The best part of this project has been the chats with the stakeholders in my system. I began to realize, as I got to converse with my stakeholders and with our guest speakers, that all of the people we have talked to range from CEOs to scientists, who exemplify leadership, display the mindset of being a learner over a leader. They value and learn from the members of their team, their partners, their educational background, and, arguably, most importantly, they love learning and manipulating problems they are trying to solve.
We do not simply show up when we are thirty and, all of a sudden, have the communication and collaborative skills that we need. Rather, they are fostered over a lifetime and develop while experiencing the world around us. In this course, I have been allowed to begin to assemble who I am as a leader and assess what skills I want to lean into learning, a uniquely Catalyst experience, and from there I will be able to use my toolbox of skills such as interdisciplinary thinking and how to give and receive feedback in my future job where I do change the world.
STATEMENT 3: "It will be confusing having my classes be taught all together."
Response: Having classes taught together can initially seem confusing, especially for students who are used to subjects being clearly separated. However, interdisciplinary learning is not inherently confusing; rather, it reflects how the world outside of Menlo and traditional schooling actually functions. Real-world problems do not exist within the confines of individual classrooms. Instead, disciplines work together to address complex challenges.
Catalyst’s interdisciplinary teaching style allows us to deeply engage with issues that are worth solving because many of these problems, such as climate change, derive their complexity from the intersection of multiple fields. While this approach can be more challenging, that challenge is intentional and productive. Interdisciplinary classes are designed with structure and guidance, helping students make clear connections between subjects rather than leaving them to navigate complexity on their own. This approach builds systems thinking skills and encourages students to wear multiple thinking hats at once, ultimately deepening their understanding.
Catalyst demonstrates that there is more than one effective way to learn. Interdisciplinary learning is not more confusing; instead, it offers a rigorous and intentional framework that mirrors the interconnected nature of the real world and prepares students to think critically about complex systems.
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